In the Years When I Was a Father

Chapter 29: The Partial Dad (9)

In the blink of an eye, four years had passed. Now, Qi Sheng had bought a courtyard house with five rooms near the place they had originally rented. The previous owner’s son was going abroad to study, and the parents, worried about him, decided to go along. Selling the house would give them extra cash in hand.

At that time, commercial housing was still extremely scarce. When Qi Sheng wanted to buy a house, he specifically asked acquaintances nearby to keep an eye out. By a twist of fate, he came to an agreement with this family.

Today, the Qi family had already opened four branch stores in the capital. Southeast-Style Marinated Snacks had gained some fame in the capital and surrounding cities. Originally, Qi Xiangdong wanted to expand to even more cities, but Qi Sheng eventually turned it down. Spreading too thin—especially in the food business—could easily lead to trouble if quality and hygiene weren’t maintained. Instead, he developed a franchising model, which helped expand the brand while reducing the strain on their own workforce.

With income from the marinated food business, Qi Sheng was free to expand the scope of their operations. After all, selling marinated meats had its limits. So Qi Sheng began considering the sauce business—broad bean paste, sweet sauce, chili sauce… Sauces were a staple in Chinese cuisine, and their market potential was clearly broader.

The sauces Qi Sheng personally crafted in various flavors sold extremely well when displayed in their shops. Once they had enough capital, Qi Sheng took his eldest son and began preparations to build a chili processing factory.

Their hometown was in a major agricultural province, and many households grew chili peppers. With transportation increasingly convenient—several highways now connected north and south near their hometown—Qi Sheng planned to build the chili sauce factory back home. This would both lower the cost of raw materials and help boost the local economy.

However, since they were already settled in the capital, they also gradually established two sauce factories in nearby cities.

During the early stages of construction, Qi Sheng and his eldest son managed everything together. Once the factories were up and running, most of the responsibility was handed over to Qi Xiangdong.

Over the past few years, Qi Xiangdong had grown a lot. After years of working with his father, he had become far more mature and steady. Now, whenever his father entrusted him with something, he could carry it out smoothly and competently. But with all the traveling and projects he juggled, the romantic relationship he had just started ended up falling apart.

Qi Sheng couldn’t help feeling a little troubled. He often watched his eldest son bury himself in work, wanting to say something but hesitating. Qi Xiangdong, who had recently been dumped, didn’t seem too affected. Although a bit annoyed, his current priorities were more focused on his career. Noticing his father’s worried gaze, he sighed helplessly, “Dad, can you please stop looking at me like that? It was just a breakup—nothing serious. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I realize we weren’t that compatible anyway.”

While working in the marinated food business, Qi Xiangdong had met a pretty college student majoring in English. He was smitten at first sight and pursued her relentlessly until she finally agreed to date him.

Unfortunately, she had initially agreed because Qi Xiangdong was decent-looking and treated her with exceptional care and generosity. But as they spent more time together, both began to realize they had very different worldviews.

The girl, an English major, paid a lot of attention to international affairs. But Qi Xiangdong, despite having earned some money, didn’t have that kind of mindset—he wasn’t the type to concern himself with global developments. His English vocabulary was limited to a few basic words. Listening to his girlfriend talk nonstop in what he called “bird language” made him feel frustrated enough to curse.

Later, with the Qi family busy building factories, Qi Xiangdong was run off his feet and had no time to keep up his earlier attentiveness. The girl, having cooled off from the initial romance, came to realize they were fundamentally incompatible and broke up with him.

When Qi Xiangdong finally returned to the capital after wrapping up work, he received her breakup message. Though he had been the one to chase her initially, he felt oddly relieved after the breakup—free from the relationship, he could now focus better on his career.

Qi Sheng looked at his eldest son, who seemed to care about nothing but work. “You really aren’t upset at all? You don’t even seem to enjoy going out anymore like you used to.”

Qi Xiangdong knew his father was concerned, so he spoke honestly: “We really weren’t compatible. Even if she didn’t bring it up, I might have eventually.”

It wasn’t necessarily hard for two people of different educational backgrounds to be together—dating wasn’t like working in a company where everything had to be equal.

The main issue was that the girl never really considered things from his perspective. She didn’t care whether he could understand her or not, and even chatted openly with her male and female classmates about all sorts of “major world events” in front of him.

In the eyes of those people, he was just some small-time businessman with no real education, someone who had gotten lucky thanks to the country’s reforms. No matter how many stores his family had, they were still just food vendors—not exactly a glamorous image.